WWE NXT Takeover WarGames 2017: Retro 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to another edition of Wrestling Inc.'s retro reviews, where we take notable wrestling shows from the past and apply our globally celebrated loved/hated format! This time around, with WWE about to present its fourth annual Survivor Series: WarGames, we thought we'd take a look at the very first show WWE chose to brand "WarGames," featuring the resurrected eponymous match: NXT Takeover: WarGames 2017!

Now, if you want to read about the other WarGames matches throughout recent WWE history, don't worry — our Watchlist from earlier this week has you covered! It does not cover the first one, however, which is arguably the weirdest one to go back and watch — a nine-man triple threat WarGames featuring three teams of three, with Roderick Strong standing opposed to The Undisputed Era instead of part of it. We'll talk about that here, as well as the other four matches on this Takeover card, including the best-remembered one between Aleister Black and The Velveteen Dream. From an opener featuring two people who don't wrestle anymore to the NXT Championship match featuring the one and only person on this card who will wrestle at Survivor Series 2025, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about WWE NXT Takeover WarGames 2017!

"Look how many of these people aren't even in WWE anymore" is a game you can play with lots of NXT Takeovers, but boy is it front and center in this one! Let's just go through the list real quick. Drew McIntyre is here, if he even counts — he was a main roster star passing through "NXT" for a cup of coffee on his way back into the company, which is why he drops the title here to Andrade "Cien" Almas. Of course, Andrade himself recently left WWE after leaving AEW after leaving WWE, so he's hardly a shining example of upward momentum despite his championship win. Neither is Aleister Black, who also recently returned to WWE after a post-"NXT" stint with AEW. Ironically, his wife Zelina Vega is now Black's own heel manager rather than Andrade's, but she at least had something resembling a WWE career after this match, as did Nikki Cross and (as of this writing) current WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Kairi Sane, who also left and was eventually brought back.

Aaaaaaaand that's it! In terms of the 20 people who appeared on the main broadcast of Takeover: WarGames 2017, five are still active in WWE. Two of those had to leave and come back, one is primarily a manager, one has had her gimmick changed about five dozen times, and the last one is Drew McIntyre. The list of people who aren't there anymore has four home-grown up-and-comers who flamed out for mostly terrible reasons (Lars Sullivan, the Authors of Pain, and Velveteen Dream — leave the memories alone) but the others are ALL former indie stars who eventually returned to the indies or AEW: Andrade (presumably), Ember Moon (now "forever" ROH Women's Champion Athena), Peyton Royce (aka TNA's Cassie Lee), Kassius Ohno (better known as AEW producer Chris Hero), all of Sanity, and current and former AEW stars Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, Bobby Fish, and Roderick Strong, later known collectively as The Undisputed Era.

While it's insane on the one hand to note that WWE creative ultimately had nothing for an entire generation of indie stars, it's also a reminder of the extent to which "NXT" was a super-indie by the end of 2017, and that trend would only increase from here. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but "NXT" should always be about building the future, and it's depressing to look back and realize that the only people on this show WWE ever really believed in (including Drew McIntyre, frankly) were the ones who turned out to be awful people.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

"WWE NXT" in 2017 was hitting all the right notes when it came to scratching the itch of the WWE Universe that the main roster simply couldn't achieve. Converting NXT TakeOver: Houston into NXT WarGames was something that not a lot of people saw coming (unless you read the dirt sheets and incredible websites such as this one, and with such anticipation around the show, you would think that WWE would go big and try to kick the show off in spectacular style...that isn't what happened.

Instead, NXT TakeOver: WarGames went the route of platforming someone who WWE wanted to build up for the future, giving them a huge stage to showcase what they were made of and why people should care about them going forward. That someone was none other than Lars Sullivan, and the decision to try and push him as the next monster heel is one that has aged about as well as leaving a carton of milk out in the Sahara Desert.

But we're not here to talk about his many, MANY sexist, racist, and homophobic remarks he posted in forums all those years ago, we're here to talk about his match with Kassius Ohno. It's a smart move to put someone as green as Sullivan in the ring with someone as good and capable as the man most people know as Chris Hero, and given that Sullivan was at the beginning of a push, the result of this match was never really in doubt. Sullivan was always going to pick up the win, it was just a case how he was going to do it, and the answer to that thought was a five minute match with no real redeeming qualities.

The fact that WWE never managed to do anything even remotely interesting with Chris Hero is so bad that it's almost impressive. The guy is one of the greatest independent wrestlers of his generation and is more influential than most people give him credit for. After all, he made Sullivan sort of look like the rookie monster that WWE wanted him to look like in this match. However, it falls apart with Sullivan being in control for the majority of it. He's slow, clunky, has no real flow to his movement to make him look formidable. If you look closely, you can literally see him memorizing where he is meant to be in the match, causing it to be very by-the-numbers and just not very interesting, despite Ohno doing his best. Overall, if you wanted to go back and watch NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2017 in order to get excited for this year's Survivor Series, skip this one and your life will be no different.

Written Sam Palmer

Sometimes a wrestler possesses so much talent that they can quite literally only have themselves to blame when things go sideways, and The Velveteen Dream is one of the more prominent case studies. He had it all; he was oozing with charisma, had a great look that he cultivated, drawing very clear inspiration from Prince, and was a more-than-competent storyteller between the bells. And it was his match with Aleister Black at NXT Takeover: WarGames that showcased all of that in abundance.

The feud had been plucked straight from the pages of flamboyant and benign annoyances, in their pursuit of recognition, becoming a malignant and persistent thorn in the lone warrior protagonist. And it worked, Dream demanding that Black say his name and recognize him as an equal, Black continuously dismissing him until their eventual singles match. Dream continued the demand throughout the match, taking full-on breaks from pressing what could have been a win to scream, "Say my name!" as well as entering wearing tights depicting both himself and his opponent with the phrase at the waistband. 

Dream tried to play Black at his own game, mimicking his sit-down spot and continuously playing games with him. But he was always somewhat behind in that regard, and in many ways the story being told was that Dream had gotten too far into the mind games, allowing Black to take advantage of the moments he had grown overzealous. Dream could have finished Black with the elbow drop, but he spent the extra moment taunting him, finding himself caught up in the ropes and at the mercy of his opponent. 

There would be no mercy from Black, delivering a kick to the sternum and taking his time in assessing the picture; Dream, meanwhile, ran forward without haste and got the Black Mass kick to the face, losing the match. Theirs was a great juxtaposition of calm and measured offense against someone out to make a point of themselves, and the result was one best encapsulated by the words uttered by the victor: "Enjoy infamy, Velveteen Dream." 

It was supposed to be a star-making performance, and for a short time it was. But as it would turn out, the infamy surrounding Velveteen Dream was not one to be enjoyed. 

Written by Max Everett

Going back and watching WWE NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2017 really is a strange sensation through a modern lens. It doesn't even feel like that long ago that this show took place and yet everyone on the card has changed significantly for better or for worse.

Take the NXT Women's Championship match for example. A Fatal Four Way match featuring the SAnitY version of Nikki Cross, the "Pirate Princess" version of Kairi Sane, the IIconic version of Peyton Royce, and a version of Ember Moon who really looks weird without the ROH Women's World Championship around her waist. All four of these women have taken wildly different paths in their careers since this night, but in this match they wanted to prove why the NXT women's division was in safe hands. After 523 days, Asuka stepped down as the NXT Women's Champion as she was moving up to the main roster, meaning that there would be an enormous hole in every "WWE NXT" show moving forward, particularly in the women's division as she was so important. This match was the test to see if the division would be okay without "The Empress of Tomorrow," and it's fair to say that the division was going to be just fine.

For me, this is one of the more underrated matches to ever take place on a TakeOver event. It's buried in between two noteworthy matches, and obviously shares a card with the first WarGames match in WWE history, but all four of these women show out in their own unique ways. It's also worth mentioning that it doesn't immediately devolve into the typical trope of two competitors being thrown to the outside so the other two can have a singles match before everyone starts taking turns getting their stuff in. There are some great spots involving multiple women in this match, with a few of them even getting you lean in as a viewer as everyone had their claim to being the next champion.

You had Cross acting as the unpredictable wild card, Royce having a lot of crowd support despite being the least experienced in the match, Sane flying around the ring like a lunatic at times, and Moon almost acting as the glue that held it all together. Everyone had their role to play and they all played them superbly, with Moon being the one to get the win after hitting The Eclipse on both Royce and Cross simultaneously. The finish is also aided by Moon being in her home state of Texas, and Asuka, the one woman Moon couldn't beat, being the one to present the belt to her in a passing of the torch moment.

Written by Sam Palmer

I have to admit, even before everything in recent memory that's gone on with Andrade, I was never his biggest fan. He's great in the ring, but I can't say I find him very interesting as a character, and I was just never a fan of his pairing alongside Zelina Vega, either. That being said, on a TakeOver with a lot to like, Andrade "Cien" Almas' victory over Drew McIntyre for the NXT Championship was my least favorite thing on the show, outside of the opening match.

My biggest issue isn't any of the in-ring action, it's mostly with Vega. While I don't mind her in the ring nowadays on "SmackDown," she wasn't exactly the most believable when it came to helping out Andrade, especially in this match. At the very beginning, she attempted to get in McIntyre's face, but rather, stared at his belly button, so the massive size difference is highlighted immediately. I get it's all about suspension of disbelief, but I can only do that so much.

Toward the end of the match, Andrade goes for the belt at ringside, distracting the referee, leaving the match wide open for Vega to interfere. She attempted a hurricanrana, which was apparently her go-to move to interfere in Andrade's matches at the time, on McIntyre, who was on his knees in the middle of the ring. The way she hit it, despite McIntyre being down a little lower for her to execute the move, it just looked kind of dumb. It would have made more sense to me if Vega came in and punched him or something since he was closer down to her level.

The only thing that made sense with Vega was when she put Andrade's foot on the rope after he took a Claymore, which I thought was just fine. Andrade also recovered way too quickly from that, and the match went on for a bit too long after it all. Andrade beat McIntyre with a Hammerlock DDT with McIntyre on the top rope.

I also don't know if it was the impending WarGames match and the excitement for that following this bout, but even Andrade's celebration didn't exactly hit the way title celebrations usually do, which may seem silly, but for whatever reason, stood out to me on this show. This ended up being McIntyre's final match in "NXT" due to him suffering a bicep injury during the match, which is kind of obvious at the end when officials are clearly checking on him in the ring. While he was always destined for the main roster following his WWE comeback, this match, injury included, wasn't exactly a super exciting one for him to go out on.

Written by Daisy Ruth

For almost a decade the "Black and Gold" era of "WWE NXT" was a breath of fresh air in mainstream wrestling, with the developmental territory working much more like a WWE-branded super-indie with talent and action to match. It was like a blend of PWG and classic ROH with a massive budget and decades' worth of IPs, perhaps best demonstrated with the return of WarGames at its namesake Takeover show in 2017. 

The main event in a double steel cage pitted three teams against one another, comprised of the Authors of Pain and Roderick Strong, Sanity's Eric Young, Killian Dain, and Alexander Wolffe, and the Undisputed Era's Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, and Bobby Fish. All of those names are no longer with the company, but it doesn't change the fact that they went above and beyond to ensure this was an action-packed return for the gimmick. AOP had been really well-protected and stood as one of the more dominant teams on the roster at the time, and coming against the big men of Sanity saw many heavy-duty spots, whether that be putting one another through tables or a Last Chapter onto the steel partition between the rings. 

Undisputed Era went on to collect all of the titles in NXT, as well as Strong himself, in the months after this night. And it was their win in the returning WarGames match that laid much of the foundation for their dominance. All three of them were standout figures within the cage, whether that be O'Reilly trying to submit the largest opponent he could wrap a rear choke around, he and Fish working together with slick duo maneuvers, and Cole ascending to the top of the cage, descending thanks to a Strong superplex, and still managing to get the win for his team. 

WarGames is now an annual staple for the company, and that reboot will always be traced back to this night. And even beyond the history behind it, the actual match itself always turns out to be a fun watch. What's not to love?

Written by Max Everett